Science has delivered the vaccines, will the WTO deliver accessibility?

Manufacturing capacity for the Covid-19 vaccines urgently needs to be scaled up to meet the massive global need.— Reuters

A PROPOSAL by India, South Africa and eight other countries calls on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to exempt member countries from enforcing some patents and other intellectual property rights under the organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) for a limited period. It is to ensure that intellectual property rights do not restrict the rapid scaling up of manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines. While a few members have raised concerns about the proposal, a large proportion of the WTO membership supports it. It has also received the backing of international organisations and global civil society.

Unprecedented times call for unorthodox measures. We saw this in the efficacy of strict lockdowns for a limited period as a policy intervention in curtailing the spread of the pandemic. The International Monetary Fund in its October 2020 edition of World Economic Outlook states, “However, the risk of worse growth outcomes than projected remains sizable. If the virus resurges, progress on treatments and vaccines is slower than anticipated, or countries’ access to them remains unequal, economic activity could be lower than expected, with renewed social distancing and tighter lockdowns.”